Dominican University GSLIS Student Association

This year I have am serving as faculty advisor to LISSA – the Library and Information Science Student Association. The current board has done some cool stuff of late: a Facebook group, a forum for student discussion on FreeForums.org and of course the blog.

The group just hosted a pizza social for students, faculty and staff. It gave us a chance to chat informally, make plans and see each other outside of the classroom. Which brings me to what I’m pondering: for a mostly commuter school like Dominican GSLIS (where folks drive in from all over the Chicago area for classes once or twice a week), how do we build community? How do we network effectively, making connections between students, faculty, and the wealth of librarian goodness we have in the area? I like the fact the board put some social networking tools in place and I hope to see them fly. I’m wondering what else works? Other library schools? What creates community?